The guitarist claims that the creators contacted him in the late ’80s about using his name behind the beer that keeps Homer and his bar buddies extremely happy.

They picked it in honour of his boozy lifestyle at the time, but since The Simpsons became a worldwide phenomenon, he regrets not licensing his name officially.

“I knew nothing about branding yourself then or the royalties off it. I just thought cool, they wanna use my name and boom, The Simpsons was born. Yeah, if I had a nickel for every time… but it’s fine.”

Our Contributors

National music writer Darryl Sterdan is old enough to know better. He lives mostly in his head but also on his couch in Winnipeg, where he listens to music, thinks about music, writes about music and obsesses over music 24/7/365. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But he really will have to get that couch cleaned one of these days.

Jane has been a Sun reporter since 1995. Before coming to the Sun, was music, film, TV, theatre, news reporter/editor at Canadian Press Toronto from 1991-95; News/entertainment radio/print reporter at Broadcast News/Canadian Press Vancouver from 1989-91; TV reporter and entertainment anchor for CKVU in Vancouver, 1988; News reporter/news reader/at CJOR Radio in Vancouver, 1984-88. Briefly went to film school in London, England, in 1984.